DS on Mental Illness and Addiction in Family Forum

[natural]

I'm trying to decide whether or not to write a DS right now, since I don't want to write one and disclose a lot of personal stuff unless it's going to improve my chances with my top choices. My PS has dealt with some challenges I faced while living abroad, and my DS would most likely focus on the issues my family has had with serious mental illness and alcohol/drug addiction and how dealing with those has made me a more focused but also more empathetic person. I'd probably also mention something about being able to consider issues from diverse perspectives in there. Would this be worth writing at all? I'm worried that it might be slightly irrelevant or too negative since I can talk about it resulting in personal growth but don't have any stories about it motivating me to work with anti-drug organizations or do anything like that. Any thoughts?

[Excellence = a Habit]

I agree that it doesn't entirely fit the profile for a DS, at least as I understand them. I think that if you wanted to tell this story, you could spin it into a DS. But since you don't really want to share it, I wouldn't write it unless you need it to explain any part of your record (in which case it might be better as an addendum) or unless you can think of a good way that it's going to broaden your peers' experience in law school

[natural]

I could use it to explain some grade issues but don't really think I want to go that far or right an addendum. I also can't think of anything specific as far as broadening my peers' experience - just a slightly different perspective of things from having gone through all of this. I guess I was just wondering since it seems like a lot of people at least consider writing a diversity statement and issues like the ones I'm referring to here seem to be similar to the ones other people consider taking up in their statements (often personal statements though), but maybe you're right that it's better not to write it if I can't touch on anything specific enough for adcomms to give me a point or two because of it.